By ROBERT JUMPER
Tutiyi (Snowbird) and Clyde, N.C.
It doesn’t take a lot to create unity. Take a gullible group of people who want something and provide them with a person or organization that promises better outcomes and will fulfill that want, and you have yourself a unified group.
Many of us are old enough to remember Nov. 18, 1978, when Jim Jones led 918 members of the Peoples Temple cult to their deaths. By all accounts, most of the 918 drank their cyanide-laced Flavor Aid, many of them serving it to their children, and all died horrible deaths in the name of Jim Jones’s brand of unity. Jones is just one of many in history who unified a group of people only to lead them to destruction and death.
So, unity for the sake of unity, or a lost cause, is not a good thing. How do we know what a lost cause is? That is a tough question. For years, I have referred to modern society’s idea of truth as situational. I still believe that a person’s truth is a matter of faith and perspective. There is a fact, which is absolute, and then there is situational truth.
For example, the United States is currently in a military conflict with Iran. That is a fact. Now, there are many schools of thought on justification. The Iranian government looks at the fact and says they were unjustifiably attacked by the United States and their allies, and they had no choice but to defend themselves. And that is their truth. The United States government says that it and its allies have been attacked over time by Iran, and they had no choice but to defend themselves. And that is their truth. If you factor in all the other opinion ideologies that produce additional perspectives on the fact, you could have tens, if not hundreds, of “truths” coming out of the single fact that the United States is in a military conflict with Iran. To the families of the thousands who have died in the conflict, these truths mean little either way.
Here is another example that hits a little closer to home. It is a fact that people are arrested for human and drug trafficking on the Qualla Boundary. Some are even prosecuted. And some are banished. Those are facts. Now, both tribal members and non-tribal members have been brought up on charges for these crimes. Another fact is that both tribal members and non-tribal members have been convicted of these charges. And it is a fact that non-tribal members have been excluded from the Qualla Boundary for these crimes. And it is a fact that tribal members have not.
A truth that one group may hold is that this is a double standard. They would say it is unfair to punish one group of people with the punishment of exclusion or banishment, while another group of people does not face that penalty because of race or membership, with that being the sole basis for the difference in penalty. Another group will hold as truth that tribal members deserve a chance to be rehabilitated. They shouldn’t be treated like non-members because they are one of us. To the victims and their families of drug and human traffickers, these truths mean little either way.
Millions of people are being swayed every day by pied pipers who use “truths” to convince us to join one group or another. Jim Jones was one. Adolf Hitler was one. Charles Manson was one. Each one of these men took facts, manipulated them into their truths, and created unity. In fact, a term that has come to mean doing things based on blind faith came from the massacre at Jonestown. When a person accepts someone else’s truth blindly and becomes their follower, we identify that person as having “drank the Kool-Aid”. This phrase is a reference to Jim Jones’ ability to coerce people even to the point of death. Now we might not allow ourselves to get into something so deeply or dramatically as to allow it to take our lives, but we surely have allowed it to affect communal unity. Capitalism versus socialism. Left versus Right. Liberal versus conservative. Traditional versus progressive. Tribal member versus non-tribal member. On-Boundary tribal member versus off-Boundary.
We see it every day. Someone will get on a social media platform, spout their perspective, and end with “and that is my truth”. In the society we live in, truth doesn’t mean what it used to. It is now a collection of opinions. Fact is objective. It is what it is. Truth is subjective. It depends on the perspective of the person telling it. As you are daily bombarded with information, take time to notice the difference. The majority of what you will hear and see, whether that is coming from the media, the government, a tribal member, a friend, or a family member, will be someone’s situational truth about the facts at hand. Don’t be blown around like a reed in the wind. Motives matter. Look at the facts. Examine those things people tell you as truth. Know what they are saying and try to determine their motivation for saying it. Let’s all strive for unity, but not for the sake of unity, but for a better community.
